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Insomnia Linked to Greater Risk of Heart Failure

Insomnia Linked to Greater Risk of Heart Failure

(HealthDay News) – Insomnia is associated with an increased risk of heart failure, with the risk increasing as the number of insomnia symptoms increases, according to a study published online March 5 in the European Heart Journal.

Lars E. Laugsand, MD, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and colleagues prospectively analyzed the association between insomnia symptoms (including difficulty initiating sleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, and having non-restorative sleep) and heart failure risk in 54,279 Norwegian adults who were free of known heart failure at baseline.

During a mean follow-up of 11.3 years, the researchers observed 1,412 cases of heart failure. After adjusting for various demographic, behavioral, and clinical variables, they found an increasing risk of heart failure with increasing number of insomnia symptoms, with hazard ratios of 0.96 for one symptom, 1.35 for two symptoms, and 4.53 for three symptoms.

"In this large prospective study of people free from known heart failure at baseline, we found that having difficulty initiating sleep, maintaining sleep almost every night, and having non-restorative sleep more than once a week were associated with an increased risk of incident heart failure," Laugsand and colleagues conclude.